Microsoft has changed its product names so many times that there's a website to track them all

Published Aug 20, 2026, 3:21 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary The Microsoft Rebrand Registry maps past and present Microsoft product names to avoid naming confusion. Timeline and table views show name durations and a trend of adding 'Microsoft' to service names. Some aliases last only a year; Azure AI Studio became Azure AI Foundry and then Microsoft Foundry with annual changes. If you've been a long-term Windows user, there's a good chance you still have old terminologies and product names rattling around in your head. I admit that I still call any disc-shaped storage medium a "CD," and I still think Windows comes with "Windows Defender" as its default antivirus (it was renamed to "Microsoft Defender" in 2019). It's all a little chaotic, which is why someone has created the Microsoft Rebrand Registry. This handy website lets you look up Microsoft's services and see its past and present aliases, so you're never caught using a term from the 2000s ever again. The Microsoft Rebrand Registry saves you from name-induced confusion You can even see a timeline showing how the product name evolved As spotted by Neowin, this website shows how Microsoft's naming conventions have changed over the years. More importantly, it shows how Microsoft's naming conventions sometimes don't apply to some products for some reason. Either way, you can use the database to search for a product name and get a full list of all the aliases it has gone by. You can sort the database entries by two different views: table and timeline. Table is great for quickly seeing how long each name was used for, while the timeline is more useful for identifying shifts in how Microsoft named its products. For instance, you can see a trend around 2020-2023 where Microsoft begins adding its name to the start of its core services. The timeline view is also fantastic for identifying product names that didn't last a long time at all. Take Microsoft Foundry, for instance; it began life as Azure AI Studio for just a year, then became Azure AI Foundry for a second year, and has now been Microsoft Foundry since November 2025. We'll see in a few months if Microsoft decides to give it its yearly coat of paint. While Microsoft has been changing names on its products a lot lately, I have to say that I don't disagree with a lot of its latest changes. Given how the company has had some truly terrible rebrands in the past, I can live with things getting "Microsoft" added to the front.